Iran 'has the fuel to build nuclear bomb'

Iran now has enough nuclear fuel to make an atomic weapon, it has emerged.

It means the hardline Islamic state - whose president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe Israel off the map - could develop its own bomb within two to five years.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, said Iran had slowed its expansion of uranium enrichment over the last 18 months but increased its stockpile of low-enriched uranium.

Hardline: Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - the country now has enough nuclear fuel to make an atomic weapon

It now has 1,010kg, compared to 630kg in November and 480kg in August.

Analysts estimate that 1,000 to 1,700kg would be needed, as a basis for conversion into high-enriched uranium, to make one bomb.

Tehran could reach that threshold within a few months, but IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei said it would take much longer to produce nuclear weapons.

The report said Iran was still refusing to co-operate with IAEA inspectors looking into Western allegations of covert atom bomb research in the past.

The U.S. yesterday urged Iran to give up its enrichment activities and said Tehran's refusal to respond constructively to IAEA requests was 'deeply troubling'.

Iran says it is producing nuclear fuel only for civil nuclear energy and claims that the intelligence behind the report - most of it from U.S. agencies - was faked.

Progress in the IAEA inquiry, which Iran regards as driven by U.S. pressure, looks unlikely before Iran sees what new president Barack Obama has to offer under his strategy of direct talks with adversaries.

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA rejected accusations of noncooperation with the IAEA, saying Iran was not legally obliged to do so.

The new report says Iranian scientists had increased the number of centrifuges refining uranium - a process that can produce fuel for civilian energy or atom bombs - by only 136 from 3,800 in November.

But there was speculation that Tehran had limited the increase to avoid provoking harsher U.N. sanctions over its refusal to suspend enrichment.